Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

Young People On ‘Brink Of The Worst Mental Health Crisis In Decades,’ Expert Warns

Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, talks about how attachment to smartphones and social media is proving damaging to the mental health of those in the "iGen" generation. In other public health news: sunscreen, malaria, heart disease, a mysterious illness, smoking and damaged skin cells.

NPR:
Smartphones Are Making Today's Teens Unhappy, Psychologist Says
For the first time, a generation of children is going through adolescence with smartphones ever-present. Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has a name for these young people born between 1995 and 2012: "iGen." She says members of this generation are physically safer than those who came before them. They drink less, they learn to drive later and they're holding off on having sex. But psychologically, she argues, they are far more vulnerable. (Cornish, 8/7)

The Washington Post:
Some Schools Don't Let Kids Bring In Sunscreen Without A Doctor's Note
State Rep. Craig Hall of Utah has four redheaded children, lives in the state with the highest rate of melanoma in the country and buys sunscreen “in the Costco size.” He is an unabashed proponent of sun protection. But when Hall, a Republican, introduced legislation this year to allow kids to bring sunscreen to school — which starts Aug. 21 in his district — he said his fellow lawmakers were less enthusiastic. “My colleagues’ first reaction to this bill was mostly ‘Seriously? We need a bill for this?’" (Moore, 8/7)

The New York Times:
Rapid Malaria Tests Work, But With Unexpected Drawbacks
Rapid diagnostic tests have greatly improved malaria treatment in the last decade, but they also had some unexpected bad consequences, a large new study has found. As hoped, the tests — which use only a drop of blood and provide results in about 15 minutes — substantially decreased how many patients with fever were incorrectly given or sold malaria drugs when they did not have malaria. (McNeil, 8/7)

Stat:
MyoKardia Drug Boosts Blood Flow For Patients With Inherited Heart Disease
MyoKardia (MYOK) announced Monday that its experimental drug mavacamten demonstrated statistically significant improvements in blood flow and aerobic capacity in patients with an inherited form of heart disease in a small, mid-stage clinical trial. Eight of the 10 patients who completed the study achieved improvement in blood flow to a level where they no longer met the threshold for being diagnosed with their disease — obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM. (Feurstein, 8/7)

Bloomberg:
Smokers Could Turn To Vaping If FDA Regulates Nicotine
The FDA’s initiative may upend the $130 billion American tobacco industry. It’s also likely to set off a ferocious lobbying and legal war in Washington, and push the cigarette industry to develop products that rely less on burning carcinogenic tobacco and more on delivering doses of nicotine through cleaner vapor. Smoking-related illnesses cost $300 billion a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Interviews with New York smokers suggested that few had taken notice of the proposal announced last week, but many said they would be more likely to switch to new delivery devices than to smoke diluted cigarette after diluted cigarette. Some have already made the change. (Cromwell and Mattingly, 8/7)

NPR:
Chip Reprograms Cells To Speed Healing In Mice
Scientists have created an electronic wafer that reprogrammed damaged skin cells on a mouse's leg to grow new blood vessels and help a wound heal. One day, creator Chandan Sen hopes, it could be used to be used to treat wounds on humans. But that day is a long way off — as are many other regeneration technologies in the works. Like Sen, some scientists have begun trying to directly reprogram one cell type into another for healing, while others are attempting to build organs or tissues from stem cells and organ-shaped scaffolding. (Chen, 8/8)

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